Demi-entendre, qu'est-ce que c'est?

A demi-entendre is an expression or phrase that
comes from accidentally combining two common expressions...

...like this:

Things took a change for the worse.

That phrase comes from two common phrases:

Things took a turn for the worse.

Things changed for the worse.

Demi-entendres are very common: in conversation,
in books, in commercials and the news. What is it about our
brains that makes us merge two phrases into one? We don't know!
But the results are very amusing.

Welcome from your hosts

The Demi-entendre site is brought to you by
David A. Black and Barbara A. Black, a son and mother
team of word-play devotees who started noticing
these usages several years ago and applied the term
"demi-entendre" to them. The site is maintained
by David. We get the demi-entendres from each other,
relatives, friends... whoever wants to contribute one!

Demi-entendre news!

The common demi-entendre "step foot" into a room (step plus set foot) was
just heard in the 1942 movie "This Time For Keeps". Interesting to find how long
some of these have been around.

The Beavercreek, OH, City School District has included the term demi-entendre in its
list of Rhetorical, Literary, and Grammatical Terms for high-school students, including an example and quotation from this site! (The quotation is from an old version of the site, but it's still us.) Check out #49 on
the chart!